Parasite
by Namikaze Artemis
Summary: How do the countries survive, say, a bullet wound to the head? It's impossible for them to die while their country still exists. Does the wound just disappear? It does not. The truth is worse than that.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. **

**Yeah... I should be working on the new chapter of my Naruto story, but I had a bit of writer's block...**

Parasite

The sound of screaming hit Canada's ears.

He was sitting- the seatbelt around his waist somehow keeping him attached to his seat- on a seat covered with a blue patterned fabric of some sort.

He also happened to be in a rapidly free-falling plane.

A flight attendant's voice crackled onto the speaker system. The plane was far too large for any one person's words to reach all the people in the plane, and so the speaker system was necessary.

Her voice was harried, desperate, and had an obvious hint of hopelessness to it. Subtle details like that were lost on the panicking passengers. She stammered out something about problems with the motor, not bothering with the French necessary for an Air Canada flight. Understandable, considering the situation.

Canada, however, simply looked around at the passengers. He took in all the things happening around him with a detached calmness, already accepting what he knew would happen.

He had fought it before, like when he had a bullet wound that didn't instantly kill him. But that had been a waste of time and effort.

Canada had learned to be apathetic about what happened when he 'died'.

He disliked the private planes he was technically entitled to, considering them a waste a gas and bad for the environment. As such, he had opted to go to and back from the World Conference in France on a commercial plane, thus sharing the pollution with hundreds of other people.

And now that commercial plane was crashing.

Canada smiled up to the ceiling, but there was nothing joyful about this smile. It was full of melancholy and pure, unadulterated regret at the inminent deaths of his people, and the others on the plane.

After all, Canada himself wouldn't be destroyed from something like a plane crash. It was impossible.

Even if he ever wanted to, which he had to admit, had happened in the past. He had given up quickly, of course, understanding the futility of the exercise.

Canada had enough time to be thankful that his pet polar bear wasn't with him- while not being exactly like a normal polar bear, it still could die.

The plane hit the water with a sickening jolt, pushing Canada back onto his seat. A crack could be heard, searing pain flew through his body, and Canada's consciousness disappeared from the body.

* * *

James Abbey groaned, staring at a piece of paper intently. He played with a pencil in his right hand absent-mindedy. He had short brown-black hair and curious blue eyes that could almost seem green in the right light. He was a Canadian, born and raised, though his father was English and his mother half-American, half-Chinese. He had just turned seventeen a few weeks ago. However, all these details would be unimportant in merely a few seconds.

As he muttered to himself that Socials really was a pain, a completely different type of pain attacked his mind.

Understandably, he started screaming. Oh, James tried not to for a grand total of two seconds, but it was inevitable.

Anyone, be it the strongest man in the world or the weakest, would cry out during all this pain. After all, James' memory, James' personality- even James' DNA was being effectively destroyed, one after another. Essentially, everything that made James _James _was being obliterated.

Actually, it wasn't exactly being destroyed. It was more like being overwritten by a more powerful one.

James continued on screaming, the sound steadily growing louder and shriller. Neither of his parents not his sister were present in the house at the time, and within a minute the neighbors were knocking on the door.

James heard nothing of this. His screaming grew steadily softer, as more pieces of James' mind were destroyed, erased by the mental equivalent of a white eraser.

In all that, James' sister- although he had already forgotten who she was- flipped out her key and raced through the door.

Stomping up the stairs, she headed towards James' room, her brown hair flying behind her, and slammed the wooden door open.

She shouted something at James, who was still sitting on his cheap plastic chair, but he was too far gone to hear.

James' sister stomped over to him and slammed a hand on his mouth, somehow stopping the screaming.

"Good. Now, what were you screaming abo- w-what?" she cut off her sentence in horror. She took a few steps back, slamming into the dresser.

"N-no... Who?" James' sister stammered.

"I'm really tired of hearing that," the man in front of her muttered. Brushing back some of his blond hair, he picked up the cellphone on the desk. He frowned slightly at the screen.

"You know the password for this, no?" he asked, violet eyes staring into James' sister's. "No? Ah, it's fine, it's fine. Could you let me borrow your cellphone then?"

Canada- for that's who he was- gave the girl in front of him a faint smile.

James' sister finally broke out of her stupor and spat out a few words.

"Who the _hell _are you, and what the _heck _did you do to James?" she said, her voice growing more shrill with every word. Panic and shock laced her voice.

Canada sighed. "If you let me make a call, everything will be explained."

She looked around wildly, utterly confused. Trying to make sense of the situation, her mind desperately grabbed at a possible explanation.

"No, you're James, right? Right?" she ran up to Canada, clenching James' familiar clothing. "It's me, Emilie!"

He looked down at... Emilie... with sadness in his eyes.

For hundreds of years, the same thing happened.

Personified countries could not die from old age. They could not die from starvation, or catch a disease not connected to their country.

However, they could die from physical wounds. A bullet wound to the head could and would kill a country. A sword to the heart could and would do the same.

But they never disappeared. They returned.

They took the body of one of their citizens as their own.

Canada recalled when he was born, over four hundred years ago. Two colonists in New France had screamed of the Devil's work when their brown haired, brown eyed toddler had transformed into a blond haired 'monstrosity'.

France had somehow managed to save him that time, but it was the first in a long series of tragedies.

As his physical appearance grew older, the age of the citizens that he took over- that he killed, _erased_- changed as well.

And the older the human, the more attached his loved ones were to the citizen he took over.

In 1812, he was shot in the back with a gun, forcing him into a new body. The father, of the person he had taken over, shot him in the back as well. Twice.

The moment he 'woke up' for a second time, he ran away. He didn't want to feel the pain of a bullet in his back again. It was the first time he had _not_ tried to explain things, to make amends for what happened.

It wouldn't be the last.

Nowadays, he had the CSIS, the Canadian Secret Service, to explain everything to the family of his _victim_.

Of course, he needed to contact them first.

"I'm sorry... Emilie," Canada said softly. He wasn't crying uncontrollably like the previous times he had 'returned', but he still couldn't manage to be completely apathetic. "Please let me use a phone. You need to have things explained to you."

Emilie was still in shock of what had happened right in front of her eyes. Otherwise, she wouldn't have handed over her unlocked smartphone as quickly as she did.

"Thank you," Canada said, promptly calling the number.

No matter how many times this happened, he couldn't destroy the guilt in his heart.

If he even had a heart anymore.

After all, he was nothing more than a parasite.

* * *

**I... don't even know where this came from. **

**Hey, does anybody know what genre this should be? I'm not sure...**


End file.
